Good Technology report shows Apple still dominates enterprise activations

Good Technology's quarterly report on device activation statistics among its Fortune 500 clients has been released. Just like previous quarters, the results show a marked dominance of iOS device activations in enterprise environments. In the consumer arena, Android has been running away with the marketshare lead for most of the past couple of years, but iOS continues to rule the enterprise roost.

According to Good's analysis, the relative percentage of Android device activations decreased over the quarter. iOS devices made up 71 percent of net activations in Q4 2011, while Android dropped to 29 percent; these numbers compare to 68 percent for iOS vs. 32 percent for Android in Q3.

The iPhone 4S was a major factor in Apple's smartphone gains for the quarter, accounting for 31 percent of all device activations -- the single most popular device for the quarter. During September and October, Android smartphone activations were steadily closing in on iPhone activations, but that trend sharply reversed in November. By December, iPhone activations were crushing Android phone activations; in fact, during December the number of iPad activations exceeded the number of Android smartphone activations, something not seen since July.

The iPad accounted for 94.7 percent of total tablet activations for Q4, a negligible decline from its 96 percent statistic in Q3. Android tablets accounted for no more than 1 percent of overall device activations in the enterprise, with a 5.2 percent share of overall tablet activations.

"For now, the iPad and iPad 2 remain the de facto enterprise tablet standard -- especially when it comes to the large company-driven deployments in verticals such as Financial Services, Business and Professional Services, Life Sciences, and Healthcare," GT reports. The Financial Services sector in particular had an iPad adoption rate four times higher than any other industry.

Together, Apple's iPhone and iPad models accounted for the top five out of ten most popular devices activated in the enterprise, with the device breakdown as follows:

1. iPhone 4S
2. iPhone 4
3. iPad 2
4. iPad
5. iPhone 3GS

Android smartphones rounded out the top 10. The most popular Android-powered device, the Samsung Galaxy S II, accounted for 1.7 percent of overall device activations.

GT's summary of 2011 as a whole shows a marked lead in iPhone activations over Android smartphone activations, especially in the last quarter. Meanwhile, the iPad is stomping Android's tablets in the enterprise; Android's tablets barely show up at all on Good's graph of 2011.

It's worth noting, as Good itself does, that the numbers for Q4 do not reflect holiday sales. Good Technology expects yet more gains for iOS devices in the enterprise once workers bring their newly-acquired Christmas gifts back to work with them over the first quarter of 2012.

Good does not report on BlackBerry or Windows Phone 7 device activations. However, given what we know about RIM's increasingly dismal performance and Windows Phone 7's lack of traction in the consumer market, it's unlikely that either platform is making a meaningful contribution to the overall trend in device activations.